


In the Family

by jenni3penny



Series: In Time [3]
Category: NCIS
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-15
Updated: 2020-04-15
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:47:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23674090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenni3penny/pseuds/jenni3penny
Summary: Next in the 'In Time' series, Florence and the staff of one of the most influential Medici homes of the late 1500s. Please take a look at the series description if you haven't already!
Relationships: Jethro Gibbs/Jacqueline "Jack" Sloane
Series: In Time [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1701886
Comments: 13
Kudos: 41





	In the Family

**Florence & Tuscany, Italy. October, 1587.**   
**Villa Medici in Poggio a Caiano & Palazzo Vecchio**

***

"Tell me what it is," he demanded, noting the way her whole body jumped in surprise at his touch. He swallowed down the laugh that tickled his throat as she turned from the soiled bedding she had dumped onto the pile and slapped at his arm.

Evening sunlight half lit them both through the windows and he chuckled then, stepping aside as she went in search of fresh bedding. Her hair was looser than it had been when he had first seen her in the morning, the plaits wrecked and half pulled loose. He'd admired the way he had gotten to see more of the soft blonde than usual. It had made her look fresher and younger.

"Can it spread? Is it curable?"

She flinched visibly as she pulled down fresh bedding and started stacking it on the thick legged table. "I've no idea. Why are you asking me?"

"You're the smartest person in Firenze," he teased at her quietly, leaning into the doorframe to block the exit. His fingers stretched out as he exhaled, tugging against the thicker fabric of her skirt to pull her closer. "And you _know_ what's wrong with them. Tell me."

"I'm not a doctor."

"But you _should_ be," he countered easily, sure of himself as he reached upward to catch her waist and attention at once. He felt her tighten beneath his touch at first, her brown eyes slightly wider as she turned her head toward his, brow arched. "Are you safe? Being so close?"

She immediately softened in response to his questioning, her body wilting slightly and shifting closer to the way he rubbed his fingers on the thin fabric of the kirtle she was wearing. It was familiar to him, a beautiful blue that made her pale skin shine, clear and silken. It was layered over a soft brown linen and the two gentle tones matched her usual pleasant demeanor.

The recent stress of the failing household had tainted her, though, had tainted them all. She was visibly tired, dark beneath the eyes and growing lethargic. They were losing light far faster than expected and he realized it must have been later than he'd assumed. The entire grand-ducal staff had been distracted by sickness, the day had gotten away from him, from all of them.

He edged his palm broader against her back and watched her exhale as she relaxed against him, studying her cheeks to judge how warm she seemed. He was encouraged by the lack of any flush or sweat.

"I don't think it's catching. No one else is sick," she murmured, shaking her head and likely knowing exactly what he was looking for as he studied her.

"The sister."

The way she rolled her eyes nearly made him laugh, her exaggeration making him smirk at least. "Bianca's sister wants the attention so she puts her fingers down her gullet and - "

"You know what it is," he nodded, dipping his face closer to hers in encouragement. Her fingers tracked along the cuff of his sleeve, thumb rubbing against a stain stiffened spot just inside his wrist. Spilled wine spread under a touch that was so light and so rare to him that he held his breath. It had taken weeks to get her to accept his touch, to get her to trust his intentions. He was still tentative with her, soft and slow. She truly was the smartest woman he’d seen in Firenze, judicious and wary and he was doing his utmost to keep her trust.

"Let me check something first?" Her request was nearly whispered, half her breath trapped somewhere in her throat. "Can you get away in the morning?"

"Where?"

She gave him a pleading look, tugged at his resolve. "His office, in the Palazzo."

"You think you're getting into - "

"I think _you_ are. And you're taking me with you." Her tone was so perfunctory, so brightly personal. He adored it, nearly as much as the feeling of her thumb pressing into the center of his palm while she stretched their fingers out together. "Don't look at me like that, we've done _far_ more dangerous things."

The words gave him pause, stalling his lungs suddenly as he met her eyes. She was right but wrong at once. Those same known eyes held his attention, held him near as he half frowned confusion. She was so familiar to him then, so known and close, intimate.

There had been other moments, other times when he had felt inexplicably connected to her. Every time it happened he grew more insistent about being with her, near her. The more often it happened the more he wanted to be close to her.

Every time was full of confusion but also practiced affection.

He knew her. _All_ of her.

"His brother _will_ find out," he offered, carrying the conversation on as he distractedly studied the curves of her lips.

"When they both die we're at the mercy of the family anyhow. Wouldn't you rather know the truth first?"

"Not ' _if_ '?" he asked, his fingertips skimming her side.

She just shook her head briefly. "When."

***

He turned his head from watching the spacious hall outside the private study and watched her instead, enjoying her confident persistence as she rifled through all the bottles and boxes and papers that littered the shelves in the office. Morning had lit the hall brightly, the tiled floor shining though the office itself was barely lit with some candlelight.

They'd barely seen a soul since making their way past the first doors. His fierce insistence and infamous glare had been most all they'd needed to get to their employers office. It helped that he'd often couried back and forth between the office and Francesco's quarters. He was familiar, fairly known to the guards as a ranking member of the Duke's personal staff. He was also especially intimidating to the younger men, his reputation having been more than proven.

And she was one of the prettiest faces he'd ever seen - all she'd _really_ had to do was smile at them, play an apology for his brutish behavior.

He looked her over in candlelight, the one slim window on the western side of the room still dark in early morning. Her hair was still loose, even more so at dawn than it had been at dusk. She was wearing more layers, a lowered hood, trapping most of the blonde under dark fabric. He itched to pull it loose and slick his fingers through the silk of it.

" _What_ are you looking for, dolcezza?"

Her sudden flush and secretive smile was the only acknowledgment he got at first, her hands flexing empty as she leaned over the desk from the opposite side and half smirked. Those beautiful eyes sank his heart down into the bottom of his stomach and he pushed from the wall, two long strides to the opposite side of the desk.

She exhaled hard, an obvious sigh. "Your timing is - "

"My timing is excellent," he argued before she could continue, leaning forward so fast that the press of his lips to her cheek tugged a gasp out of her. "Kiss me."

She squinted at his good natured pleading but didn't move, lifting her jaw. "You don't deserve it."

The only answer he gave her was a grin, pressing slightly farther forward over the desk so that he could turn his face against her cheek, brushing his nose against her. She near whimpered with annoyance and his grinning grew wider, more impish, more playful. It didn’t take more than a moment for her to turn her mouth into the kiss and moan as his tongue teased between her lips. One hand lifted from the desk just to catch the side of her face, stroking to the back of her head to keep her still as he slid his tongue against hers and dug into blonde hair. He loosened it on purpose as he kissed her, both hands then catching into the length as he pulled it from beneath her hood. He could taste her laughter along his tongue as she finally forced their mouths apart, her eyes glittering in candlelight. A sudden surge of desire struck him like a bolt, sent his skin taut and made him half hard as he met her eyes. He could feel her wrapped around him, could feel warm skin and hear her moaning as though it was more a memory than imagined.

"It's not here," she whispered, entirely distracted by his slow kisses along her jawline.

"What isn't?" Reality was far less interesting than the thrum of her pulse under his tongue but she was exactly the sort of woman who wanted his attention just as much as his affection. And he _knew_ it.

"White arsenic."

His head jerked up sharply, hand coming up to catch her jaw and lift her face. The pad of his thumb pressed the corner of her mouth as he searched her features with surprise and concern. The shining darkness of her eyes was full of honesty, her cheekbones slack in sad realization. "You're serious?"

"Very," she whispered, more apologetic than he had expected of her.

His fingers twined through blonde again as his hand lowered, laying her hair down over her clavicle. “How do I defend them against poison?”

“You don’t.”

***

The Grand Duchess had finally fallen into a restless sleep, her bedchamber mostly quiet except for the ins and outs of two of the younger girls. She had left them to watch the sick woman and gone to the kitchens to try and relax, needing the smells and the heat and the comfort of familiar women and their combined voices. It hadn't been long before one of them had pushed her hands full with flaky bread and shoved her into the corner.

She'd been half through getting fiercely questioned about a particular consigliere when he swung down the main stairwell and drew the attention of the entire kitchen. He was handsome enough that he _always_ caught their attention, usually answering their harmless flirtation with some of his own. He was always gentle and kind with the staff, always minding them just as much as he did their employers.

He was respected, though, sometimes feared. The entire staff had seen the breadth of the things he could do when it had come to defending the family, the house, its staff. They’d all seem him flex his strength at some point in the preceding decade. So it was more than a surprise when they saw the fresh mottled marks all over his face, the open cut above his eye and the split bloodied lip. He was not a man to lose a fight unless the fight itself had been unfair.

“My apologies,” he murmured to one of the oldest women, giving her a winced smile and soft eyes as she made a sad sound and reached for him. “I’m sorry to interrupt.”

She watched him lean into the older woman’s touch, standing to meet him and stepping forward while the other woman took hold of his chin and turned his head. His eyes caught her movement and he tried to smile at them both, offering her his hand while being fussed over. She tugged at his fingers and pulled him toward her, drawing him into the same corner she’d been shoved into earlier. The bread was forgotten to the table just as quickly as she lost track of how many other women were half watching as both her hands caught on his face carefully. He didn’t flinch but she saw a wince just barely thin his beautiful eyes.

She shook her head slowly as she prodded around the split in his lip, checking to see how swollen it was. "Please stop pushing him."

"He's a traitor. And soon a murderer." His voice had dropped to a whisper but bitterness had soured the tone. There was more than just anger on him, more than frustration hidden just below the supposedly placid calm. He was absolutely contemplating revenge, murder, something of the sort. She knew the look of vitriol on him, had seen it thunder through his eyes and over his face before. Not that she could name exactly when…

Her left hand lifted and she traced the vicious bruising and swelling above his eye. "Just stop. Don't _push_."

"Don't you want to see justice?" he demanded and suddenly she realized that he’d managed to get his hands around her waist. Both his palms curled her closer, tugging her in with the same force that he’d used in asking. Those bright eyes went squall colored and enraged, the bruising on his face seeming to deepen in color just while she watched.

"Not at your expense," she hissed back, trying to keep the conversation quiet and realizing they had drawn quite an audience anyhow. She gripped at him, yanking on fabric as she headed for the south stairs, the doorway cramped and shorter and more of a nuisance for someone his height. "I've come to like having you around."

She near tripped forward in the stairwell considering how hard and fast he stopped his movement at the bottom of the steps, one foot on the next up while he reflexively grabbed at her hand and stared up at her, open-mouthed. He seemed slightly shocked, agape.

He gave a tug at her as he recovered, pulling her back downward as his other hand caught on her waist. "Have you?"

"I'm not inclined to lose you over the duplicitous machinations of a family I'd just as soon see burn itself down to the ground." A brow arched over blue eyes as he half smirked, obviously surprised by her sudden candor. She took the moment to lean against the curved stairwell wall, watching him come closer, lowering her voice. “They don’t deserve the loyalty you give them.”

“They’ve given me a family, a home," he argued, suddenly distracted as he looked down the front of her. She encouraged it slightly, pulling him in by the sleeve and bringing them closer.

“ _I_ can give you that." She had said it without hearing it in her head first and she realized how it sounded just by the way it made his bright eyes flick cautiously upward in half light. “ _Please_?”

His squint was a delicious warning if its own and she smiled up into it while he spoke. “Don’t make me such a tempting offer, dolcezza. You may regret it.”

“Don’t separate us again,” she begged, purposely plying the last word with heavier meaning before she could realize it. His eyes went wider once more before he leaned farther forward and inhaled. She felt his chest rise and fall as he looked downward and leaned closer, his palm flat and flush to her torso. He looked her over with more intent than usual, sensual and obviously aching.

“So my options are you or justice?”

His whisper had pulled on her lower spine, drawing her upward into his leaning. The shift drew him closer and she felt his hand turn so that it was his knuckles brushing against her instead of his palm. “We don’t get to deal in justice. Your options are me or revenge.”

“That’s not a fair choice - one always tastes better than the other.”

“Yet here you are,” she kissed along his lips, letting his growl breathe between her own. “Forced to choose.”

“You make _nothing_ easy.”

She just hummed a soft agreement, nodding as he towered over her. “But you like a good fight.”

***

He hadn't been asleep for more than a couple hours, his body jolting as soon as he had unconsciously heard the shush of her feet and the shift of his door. Barely five hours before he had overseen the removal of Francesco’s body, tradition making it so the corpse had been carried through a hole that had been created in one of the bed chamber’s walls. It was an obscene custom, one that had always made his skin crawl, one that had made his sleep restless and uncomfortable. Not that he hadn’t already been on guard and worrisome.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered into the dark of his room before slipping in.

“Bianca?”

He heard her shunt the door shut, “Not much longer.”

“You shouldn’t be in here. Not alone.”

“I’m _not_ alone,” she answered smartly, voice a hush that just barely preceded her fingers against his chest, pushing him back down flat. It was suddenly hot in the room, hot and dark and he could feel her knee against the side of the bed while she stroked his chest.

He could barely see her but the heat of her was close and comforting and he lifted his hand just under her elbow, bracing her as she shifted. He groaned as she used her other hand to nudge him, palm flat against his hip and shoving to make room. Long fingers stretched down and found his thigh and stayed there, pressing heavier weight as she leaned onto the small bed beside him. He hadn’t taken time to undress, just dropped exhausted into bed, and now he appreciated the fact that she maybe wouldn’t instantly feel his sudden arousal at having her pressed into bed with him.

“We’ll meet Martinelli at Bonistallo once she's gone,” she murmured along his jaw, the warmth of her breath finding his throat. "He can get us out."

He lifted his jaw, letting her curl into him and duck her head between his neck and shoulder. Less than a breath later and he gave in, curling her closer as he put both arms around her and shifted more weight her way. He felt her clutch closer in answer, her fingers on the opposite side of his jaw as she sighed out and went relaxed. He felt her find his pulse and press against it.

"I'm not a coward," he whispered into the dark room. "But I feel like one tonight."

"Is it cowardice to protect your family?"

He smiled ruefully on her simply put logic, staring into the darkness while she kept his pulse beneath her fingertips. Their breathing slowly evened to a matched pace and rhythm, steady.

They knew what was coming.

It was just a matter of waiting.


End file.
